CMake File API

CMake has rapidly become the de facto standard build system for C++ projects, with rich built-in cross-platform support and external support from IDEs and package managers.

What do you do if one of your tools or a portion of your build needs to interact with CMake's object model of targets, directories and files? CMake exists only as a command-line tool, there is no library of functions you can call from C++ in order to make queries against CMake's internal object model.

Starting with version 3.14, CMake added a "file API". A query file is placed in the build directory and during configuration time, CMake reads the query file(s) and writes one or more replies in the build directory in response to the queries. Because the responses are written at configuration time, they are available to any custom commands and targets at build time.

This month, Richard Thomson will give us an introduction to the CMake file API. We will cover how to create queries manually and examine the replies as well as how to create queries in CMake itself and consume the replies at build time.

This will be an online meeting, so drinks and snacks are on you!

Join the meeting here: https://meet.xmission.com/Utah-Cpp-Programmers

Watch previous topics on the Utah C++ Programmers YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@UtahCppProgrammers

Future topics: https://utahcpp.wordpress.com/future-meeting-topics/
Past topics: https://utahcpp.wordpress.com/past-meeting-topics/